Free Janice Gentle Gets Sexy by Mavis Cheek

amount of persuasion made any difference. So if Battersea was the kind of place she wanted to live in, and if she was as happy with that dreadful hutch-like place as she seemed to be, it was hardly surprising, mused Sylvia Perth, that Janice asked for nothing beyond her keep. But, oh dear, it was such a waste . . .
    'Dermot Poll,' said Janice Gentle dreamily.
    Sylvia raised her eyebrows. Lord, she was off again.
    'I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the line that night I missed something he said. I thought he was going to come to me, but . . . well ... I must have got it all muddled. He probably arranged a meeting somewhere else. He probably waited there all night, just as I waited all night for him . . .'
    Her voice rose, her eyes filled with tears, the pain was quite real to her, and Sylvia was embarrassed. She wiped the wetness beneath Janice's eyes with her Venetian lace handkerchief.
    'There, there,' she said, 'we'll find him for you. Don't you worry.'
    'Did you use those private detectives?'
    Sylvia Perth replaced her hanky in her Anastasie pochette, snapped it shut, and said smoothly, 'Of course. I told you that they had no luck. And that, I am afraid, is why we need another book. As I told you, dear, they cost so much, so very much nowadays . . .'
    'Skibbereen was a clue. He came from Skibbereen . . .'
    'Yes, dear, and Charlie Chaplin came from London. But he didn't end up there. Do you see?'
    'He mentioned Australia, America, China . . .'
    Sylvia nodded. 'I know, dear. So we need lots and lots more in the kitty before we can do anything about it. So buck up and let's get started. Shall we?'
    Janice ceased the tears. What good would they do? What was needed was action, creativity, to provide. After all, did those queens of Spain and France flinch from raising the finance to fight their crusades? They did not. And neither, therefore, must she.
    'You don't think he will have forgotten me?'
    Sylvia looked at Janice. Above her considerable bulk the only relief from beige and buff was the pink rosette of her nose and the misty red rims of her eyes through the steamed-up glass of her spectacles. ‘I don't see how he could, my dear,' said Sylvia Perth with feeling. 'I really don't see how he could.'
    It was at this point that Sylvia Perth felt the first tightening in her chest. She sat very still for a moment, and soon it passed. She stood up. 'Good luck, my dear,' she said, straightening her little
    Dior skirt. And she went out into the air to breathe slow and deep and remind herself to stay calm. Janice Gentle wrote on.
    Sylvia Perth kindly took over the management of all Janice's affairs, for which Janice was deeply grateful. She no longer had to deal with accountants, publishers, taxmen, bill-paying, the general public, bank managers (particularly bank managers), the media - not anybody. Sylvia was even able to sign things for Janice, which saved a great deal of what Sylvia called fuss.
    Fuss was something, in any case, that Sylvia Perth wished to avoid for her own good, too. Fuss made her breathing difficult, fuss made her chest tighten, fuss brought the occasional pounding in her ears as if the ocean itself were closing in. Fuss, as the years drew on, seemed ever lurking and a most debilitating nuisance.
    'Just leave everything up to Sylvia,' she said the last time they met. She placed an Alfredo-gloved hand upon Janice's pale head and patted it. 'You must not worry any more. Just keep on writing. It's the only way. And don't forget, it really would be helpful if this time you could give it a one-word tide. That's what they like nowadays.' She lit one of her Turkish cigarettes so that Janice was wreathed in the blue-grey smoke like an unblinking houri. 'Who knows if this next one won't do the trick. And then' - she gave Janice a wicked little smile - 'it will be Dermot here I come . . .'
    She breathed the smoke out generously and it eased the remnants of the tense, odd feeling in her chest. 'How I envy you your